2010 Diary week 21
Global warming and food production
Book Review
Part I of The Greenhouse Effect, published in 1980, points out that “The next major drought in the West will occur around the year 2000. But it is not with that drought that this book is concerned. It is the one likely to strike around 2020, near the end of the first decade of significant carbon dioxide caused climatic warming.” “Natural cycles of warming and cooling still dominate our weather and climate. Every 180 years a significant drop in atmospheric temperature takes place and persists for several decades.” “There are cycles superimposed upon cycles superimposed upon cycles, and the cooling is never uniform. The 180-year cycle seems to be the dominant one.” “The bottom of the last cycle was in the early 1800s, which suggests the 1980s will once again bring peak coldness.” “A natural cooling trend will likely mask the initial effects of any human-induced warming. The greenhouse effect is possibly preventing temperatures from dropping as low as they might.” “Before the end of the century, a natural warming trend is projected on the 180-year cycle curve, while at the same time the carbon dioxide effect really takes off.” “Agriculture, especially, is highly sensitive to climatic change, and the greenhouse threat holds frightening possibilities for our Midwestern breadbasket.” “The greatest disaster in American history attributable to metorological factors was the superdrought of the 1930s, which dried up 50 million acres of the Great Plains.” “During the period 1930-1939, July temperatures in the corn belt states of Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio averaged from 2 to 4ºF or more above modern means. July precipitation averaged just 50% to 85% of current normals. The hottest and driest weather blistered Iowa and Missouri, and corn crops withered and died.”